Advice on custom point costs

[Sherman Davies]

Well, I searched and found a few threads related to point costs for custom units, but none in the Comic Hero Custom section, so I figured I'd start one here. In addition, most of those threads were from people asking for help, not offering tips, so I don't think this one will be too redundant.

Anyway, I've heard a lot of members who frequent this section say that choosing point costs for their custom units is one of the hardest parts of designing a custom. I completely agree - after all, you can create any powers and abilities you can think up, but how can you ensure that you don't break the game with your 9-attack, 18-life, 20-point monster figure? (Assuming you care about not breaking the game, that is. )

Well, I don't claim to be some ultimate authority on the matter, but I thought I'd share the process I go through with my customs in the hope that it'll give some people an idea of where to start. Again, the following is just how I do it, not the only way, not the best way, maybe not even a right way. So take whatever I say with a truckload of salt.

Warning: The following is a pretty long read.

First of all, for me, point costs come last in the design process. Unlike the designers for the official game, who have to design filler units to meet certain metagame needs, I rarely have a "target cost" in mind when I design a Heroscape unit. My main concern is capturing the essence of that character and letting the point cost fall where it may. Once the character's stats and special powers are designed, I begin thinking about cost. I find that Heroscape figures can be broken down into four attributes:

1) Mobility

This is the figure's ability to move around the battlefield. This attribute is a combination of their Move stat (‘natch), size (double-base figures are generally less mobile than single base figures, even when they have higher Move stats), height and abilities like Flying, Disengage, Slither, Ghost Walk, etc… A figure’s Range stat also plays a small part in judging their mobility; after all, a figure with a ranged attack is less hampered by a low Move stat than a melee figure.

2) Offense

This is the figure’s ability to destroy (not impair – those abilities fall under the fourth attribute, Miscellaneous) other figures. This attribute is a combination of the Attack and Range stats as well as factors like: number of attacks per activation, presence or lack of a special attack, and potency of attack (two of Zetacron’s attack dice are more potent than two of a Microcorp Agent’s). Special powers like Counterstrike are another thing I keep in mind when trying to judge a figure’s offensive ability. I also factor a figure’s mobility into its offense, since more mobile figures can gain height or other positional advantage when attacking more easily than less mobile ones.

3) Survivability

This is the figure’s ability to stay in play or, in some cases like the Zombies, to return to play. Survivability is a measure of the Defense stat and Life score, plus any defensive abilities like Stealth Dodge or Tough. Mobility also is something I consider when I judge the survivability of a figure, for the same reasons it applies to offense. Range is something else I think affects survivability, since the ability to avoid engagement while attacking is itself a form of defense. Anyone who’s seen Guilty McCreech run & gun a couple squads of MacDirk Warriors to death will agree, I’m sure.

4) Miscellaneous

This encompasses any special powers that don’t move the figure, destroy other figures, or help the figure stay on the board. These are usually what are often called “cheerleader” powers, the best known example of this being Raelin’s Defensive Aura. Since these powers usually do not benefit the figure who possesses them, the figure’s other attributes or powers don’t factor in as much when it comes to determining how useful they are. I often judge these abilities in isolation from the figure’s other attributes. There are exceptions, though. For example, Raelin’s mobility makes her aura more useful than it otherwise would be. The same goes for Nerak’s ability to bond with the very figures he boosts. As a final example, the Nakita Agents’ Smoke Powder Special Power would be more useful if they were larger, double-based figures.

Once a custom figure’s general attributes are broken down, I try to find an existing Heroscape figure that fills a similar role/niche and seems to be in the ballpark when it comes to power level. For example, if you had just designed a Fantastic Four Thing figure, you want to find another melee brawler to compare him to and not, say, Nilfheim, even if your Thing also has a 6 Attack and 4 Defense. Jotun might be a better comparison in this example.

When looking for an official figure to compare a custom to, I also try to limit myself to figures that are generally considered by the community to be fairly costed, that is, neither A+ nor C- units. I personally shoot for my figures to be B+ type units. Of course, I embrace the suck and don’t think all figures should lie in this range of usefulness, but I realize that despite shooting for B+, I’ll miss the mark enough times that I’ll end up with a variety of usefulness in my customs. Anyway, the following is a (very) short list of some units I think fit this cost criteria:

Agent Carr, Aubrien Archers, Concan, Heavy Gruts, Kaemon Awa, Krug, Major Q10, Sgt. Drake Alexander (SotM), Sonlen, Syvarris

After picking an official figure, I start comparing the attributes of my custom against those of the official figure. Who’s more mobile? Who’s the better attacker? Who will last longer on the battlefield? What else do the figures bring to the table? And so on.

I figure it’ll help if I use an example to illustrate my thought process. Below is my Batman custom and one of the figures I used to help figure out Batman’s cost, Sgt. Drake Alexander:





I started with mobility. Sgt. Drake has a higher Move stat and his Grapple Arm is superior to Batman’s (Major Q10’s tech is apparently superior to 21st century Waynetech) Grapple Line. Sgt. Drake would appear to be more mobile in every way, but Batman’s Grapple Line allows him to disengage without taking passing swipes, so that helps a lot. Still, Sgt. Drake will have the edge in most circumstances, so I rated his mobility higher than Batman’s, if only by a bit. So far, I figured Batman would cost a little less than Drake, maybe 140-150 points.

I then compared their offense. Although Sgt. Drake’s magic sword and 6 Attack are better than Batman’s judo chops and 5 Attack, in actuality Batman has the edge in most cases due to his Batarang Special Attack. Not only does it have the same range and damage as Drake’s Pistol Fire Special Attack, Batman can attack twice with it, making him more useful against squads than Drake, and is not limited in his target selection. (Batman can also attack the same target more than once, an advantage over abilities like Captain America’s Shield Throw.) So: Batman is better offensively than Drake, which should bring his cost back up to around 170, right? Well, not really. Since the rules of Heroscape favor the offense, and the costing of other units seems to indicate that offense, even potential offense, is valued very highly (note the Hulk and MacDirk Warriors), having a better offense than Drake not only equalized Batman and Drake’s point cost, it pushed Batman a bit over Drake, to around the 180-190 range.

Next came survivability. Judging purely by their stats, it would seem that Batman once again has the edge over Drake. Both their Defenses are at least 4, what’s considered the “magic number” of Heroscape defense. (That’s the number of defense dice at which rolling a shield becomes more of a safe bet, and not rolling a shield is against the odds.) Batman has 1 higher Defense, but Drake has 1 more Life. My personal ratio in judging the relationship between Defense and Life is that 1 Defense equals 2 Life. That is, if a figure loses 1 Defense, it takes an increase of 2 Life to retain the same level of survivability. So a figure with 4 Defense and 3 Life is tougher than a figure with 3 Defense and 4 Life, but roughly equal to a figure with 3 Defense and 5 Life. So using that ratio, Batman is a bit more survivable than Drake. But when Drake’s Thorian Speed power is factored in, everything changes. Thorian Speed protects against all normal non-adjacent attacks, and does so without an element of chance – that is, no 20-sided die roll or anything else is required for the power to work. It just works. Not only that, but it protects against what are arguably the best units in the game – ranged squads like the 4th Massachusetts Line and Krav Maga Agents. Thorian Speed shot Drake’s survivability over Batman’s, dropping Batman’s cost back down to the 140-150 range, since Drake now led Batman in two of the three attributes.

Last came miscellaneous. This one was easy, since Drake has no miscellaneous abilities and Batman has one, Strategist. This raised Batman’s point cost from the previous 140-150 range, but the question then became, what is Strategist worth? This was tricky, as there is no official Heroscape ability that allows a player to view an opponent’s Order Markers. What I did was make a rough guess – I costed Strategist at 40 points, a nice round number, raised Batman’s point cost to around the 180-190 area and I began playtesting. What that revealed was that while Strategist is a useful ability, it is only situational in its usefulness. It's pretty useless against against squad-heavy armies that place all their order markers on the same card. I also found it was a useless ability in a 1-on-1, hero-to-hero fight. Playtesting showed me that the power wasn’t broken and was worth less than 40 points in Batman’s case. This dropped his cost down to the 160-170 range, right in between my 140-point and 190-point extremes. A bit more playtesting and I settled on 175 points as a cost I was happy with.

Whew! If you’ve made it this far, sorry for being so long-winded, and I hope that was useful for anyone out there who’s a bit lost as to how they might start making their own customs.

[Garada]

Thanks for posting this, Sherman. It's a great compendium of advice. I can always use help with costing.

This should be considered required reading for all new customizers.

Bookmarked! [and +rep]

[hi1hi1hi1hi1]

Wow great article. Sums up pretty much everything about points on paper. Nice work.

[Sherman Davies]

Thanks, guys. I'd really love for this to become a useful resource for new custom creators who are intimidated by the costing process.

I edited my list of "official figures used for comparison" to include Concan, another figure who's well costed and particularly useful for creating superheroes, since he's similar in role (flying melee figure) to many of them. If anyone can think of any other figures that they use to help balance customs, lemme know and I'll add them to the list. Also, if you all think of anything I forgot or left out, speak up!

[Garada]

Just wanted to give this the ol' bumperoo, since I'm sure SD is too modest to do it himself.

This is crucial theory and information for anyone making customs.

As I get more confident in my own customizing ability, I still find myself referring to this great piece of advice that Mr. Davies has assembled.

[A3n]

great post SD & this is very similar to my own thought process, if I actually sat down & wrote some rules about it . But hey you did it for me .

Excellent work!

Cheers

[badgermaniac]

To me, the hardest element is how to cost things that are "game-changers", but only in rare occurrences.

How do you put a value on instant-kills on rolls of 20? There just aren't many official characters to choose from that have other similiar attributes. It requires a lot of back and forth between a lot of figures, trying to get a handle on why one guy is worth more than another.

The other tough ones are the characters that have unique abilities. A character like say, Hercules, is easy to cost, He is basically a big slugger whose value is tied up in his life/offense/defense.

However, what do you do with a character like Super-Adaptoid, who is able to mimic other player's skills. If you are next to Graviton, the gravity controlling ability is much better than being next to say, Ant-Man, and his ability to control arachnids.

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by badgermaniac

To me, the hardest element is how to cost things that are "game-changers", but only in rare occurrences.

How do you put a value on instant-kills on rolls of 20? There just aren't many official characters to choose from that have other similiar attributes. It requires a lot of back and forth between a lot of figures, trying to get a handle on why one guy is worth more than another.

This may sound controversial, but I barely consider the bolded type of abilities above when I cost a figure.

Let me explain. By the time I come to those types of abilities in my costing process, I've already gone through my other three categories of mobility, offense and survivability. In other words, I save the weirdo miscellaneous abilities for last, so I've already settled into a ballpark area I'm fairly confident in. When it comes to an ability like the ones you're specifically talking about, the ones that will succeed only once every 10 games, if that, I often leave the cost right where it is or add 10, maybe 20 points max, depending on what the power does. (For example, if it were like Morsbane and took away a power on a 20, I'd probably add nothing. Yup, nothing. If it were an insta-kill, I might add on that 10 or 20.) The way I figure it a power that unreliable, regardless of what it does, is worth almost nothing and should be considered gravy or a bonus any time it does succeed.

[Melwing17]

This is an extremely useful and well-written thread. Thank you. "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Sherman Davies again."

[Balantai]

Originally Posted by Sherman Davies

This may sound controversial, but I barely consider the bolded type of abilities above when I cost a figure.

Let me explain. By the time I come to those types of abilities in my costing process, I've already gone through my other three categories of mobility, offense and survivability. In other words, I save the weirdo miscellaneous abilities for last, so I've already settled into a ballpark area I'm fairly confident in. When it comes to an ability like the ones you're specifically talking about, the ones that will succeed only once every 10 games, if that, I often leave the cost right where it is or add 10, maybe 20 points max, depending on what the power does. (For example, if it were like Morsbane and took away a power on a 20, I'd probably add nothing. Yup, nothing. If it were an insta-kill, I might add on that 10 or 20.) The way I figure it a power that unreliable, regardless of what it does, is worth almost nothing and should be considered gravy or a bonus any time it does succeed.

I support this line of thinking.

This is especially true if the D-20 ability replaces an attack or movement. If you had an ability that replaced an attack but killed the opponent 100% of the time, what would you cost it at? 200 point, perhaps? If we reduce that chance of success to 5%, we would be reducing the cost to 10 points.

[hi1hi1hi1hi1]

Originally Posted by Balantai

I support this line of thinking.

This is especially true if the D-20 ability replaces an attack or movement. If you had an ability that replaced an attack but killed the opponent 100% of the time, what would you cost it at? 200 point, perhaps? If we reduce that chance of success to 5%, we would be reducing the cost to 10 points.

I agree to an extent. Just think if you had the same car without that ability and the card with the ability and they costed the same, obviously I'm going to take the one with the extra ability. So you have to add at least 5-10 points for the power.

[Sherman Davies]

While we're on the subject of weirdo miscellaneous abilities, I just wanted to note that I've edited the original post to reflect my most up to date version of Batman. Strategist now allows you to view all of an opponent's markers and I upped his cost 5 points. The photo has also been updated automatically in my DC customs thread.